Will Dallas Homes Get Smaller?

D.W. Skelton and I have talked about this for the last five years — he contending that we will soon see the end of the mega mega home, even in Dallas. Now our Virginia McAlester agrees, and tells The Washington Post’sElizabeth Razzi that big homes were de rigeur at the turn of the 20th Century for the wealthy: 20 or 40 rooms, which required a tremendous income (and staff out the wazoo) to keep up. Now, predicts McAlester, you will see smaller homes built with tremendous green consciousness, especially when it comes to energy efficiency. Other experts say our homes will not get all that smaller — the average U.S. home size is increasing — but will focus more on quality, rather than size. So tell me, where is this happening in Dallas besides Little Forest Hills?

New Years Real Estate Resolutions

Tell us what you plan to do with your homestead in 2009: sell, buy, remodel, maintain? Hop beyond the homestead — plan to buy more real estate in 2009? I’m always ready to sign on the dotted… and have many homestead aspirations. Let’s see how many come to fruition by 2010:

1. Get a new wireless keyboard and mouse. My old one died right after Christmas and I am using a Prilosec OTC mouse that may be a collector’s item someday.

2. Re-paint our media room and make it more than a storage room for my kid’s furniture. The placenta red has to go — I’m thinking carmel. I’d like to build in a bar complete with kegerator (this for future son-in-law) where we have the water pipes in the wall. (Spouse: “And monkeys will fly…”) It’s a pseudo home theatre, but nothing is more fun than going up there to watch movies — when you are not tripping over boxes.

3. Reupholster my dining room chairs and have four additional chairs made to give me seating for eight. Do not tell my husband. When the chairs appear, I will simply insist they’ve been there all along. (I’d really rather buy a beautiful new Baker table with eight chairs, but we are on austerity.)

4. Re-do the walkway from my patio to the pool. I know this will severly injure my husband and son psychologically, as they laid the stone by hand eight years ago. (Figure in budget: shrink sessions.) I am planning a wedding this year and we will be having major parties, I’m thinking Pennsylvania bluestone with tiny Mondo grass. 

5. By December, I’d like to replace my upstairs carpet when the kids FINALLY have their own place. I’m thinking Sisal, but I have dogs.

6. My husband’s resolution: save money and halt all Candy’s New Years Resolutions.

Ah, there’s always 2010!

Holiday House Porn

Really liked this house but cannot recall where I saw it. Swear that if you survive the holidays and you are female, it’s like having a lobotomy.

10151 Daria Place Back Yard

A dear friend tells me she used to play on Daria Drive and Daria Placeall the time as a child, and this is what that big back yard looked like right before the home closed. Spacious, eh?

Another One Bites The Dust

This home about five doors down from me.

4500 Lakeside Drive: Say It Ain’t So!

Remember this story about 4500 Lakeside Drive and what used to be there? And then this? Well, I hope you are sitting down and in fact, go pour yourself a dram before you read this. Guess who has decided NOT to build on this most prime choice of land? And guess who has it QUIETLY on the market for $14 million? Yeah, you got it.

President Bush Home On Daria Drive: Quiet No More

Maybe they’ll install one of those huge overhead signs: 10 minutes to Preston/Royal.

Holiday Dazzle Courtesy of James Davis

There he is, so adorable, working his magic on my staircase with that gold fabric. Thanks to James I have the fab staircase, mantel and a fun angel scene in my dining room. But the tree is STILL not decorated.

Ready For The Holidays!

I hate my fireplace mantel. Out of scale, I think. So I’m hoping Santa comes down the chimney, takes this and leaves me a new one. Thank God for the talents of James Davis, former design manager of The Black Iris in Laguna Beach, CA, who flew in to create Christmas at my house this year. (Full disclosure: James flew in to Dallas to decorate the house of a friend, and I begged her for a few hours of his time.) The Black Iris made its television debut in the reality series “Laguna Beach”, and James counts Elizabeth Taylor and Oprah Winfrey among his many famous clients. To have him jazz up the house of a peon like me was very special — those fab gold arrangements: shhhh — florals straight from JoAnn’s. 

Extreme Makeover Home: From Rickety Ranch To Mediterranean Palace In Seven Days

We were out there last week, then Real estate school and inclement weather kept me from updating. Zillow did such a great job, I’m just going to turn you over to Diane Tuman, who was kind enough to add in our video interview with the Augustin family!

Second Home Market Sucking (Super Cold Yellowstone Club Type) Bad Air?

This story says there are bargains to be found in the Hampton’s — that is, if you think a $1.537 million second home is a bargain. (Here’s former Lehman Brothers president Joseph Gregory’s $32.5 million Bridgehamton vacation pad.) I have an idea: turn this place into a fractional ownership for those of us who lost money with Lehman. Any legal minds out there want to litigate this?  

Meantime, Tamarack in Idaho is under, while Credit Suisse is fighting to hang onto first lien status with uber-exclusive Yellowstone Club, which is just a mess , bankrupt and smarting from bad press due to the nasty divorce of it’s great-looking founders, Tim Blixeth and his ex (?), Edra. Also pulled in: luxury second home big boys Discovery Land Co. Interim lender CrossHarbor Capital Partners is trumping and may end up owning the joint because Credit Suisse apparently could not cough up enough cash for a debtor-in-possession loan:

“While it is highly unusual for a major lender to be pushed out of the first lien position in a bankruptcy, Credit Suisse may turn out to be too late with its latest plan.”

About this time last year I tried phoning YC to write up  properties as Hot Props in D Home — they acted as if I needed a security clearance and was trying to find the president’s war-time bunker. We ended up in Big Sky.

But Dallas Addison, who develops second home properties in east and south central Texas, as well as Hawaii, tells me the second home market is still pretty strong. (Posting his story soon: Dallas tells me that Hawaii’s Big Island gets so crowded with residents’ private jets they have to haul them off to other islands for parking.) Glad to hear it: I haven’t been on a Lear in forever.

Welcome Home George and Laura: Love The ‘Hood

This sign is plastered up and down Meaders Lane and sprouting up on Daria Drive and Place, where crews are at work trimming trees on the new Bush residence(s). Planned as a “welcome wagon” for the President and Mrs. Bush, the signs are the brainchild of one Patrick Bibb, a 2007 Hillcrest High School graduate and a sophmore at TCU studying Economics. Patrick lives on Meaders with his parents. His brother Ryan, a Hillcrest senior, is helping him create the signs. $20 each; $2 from each sale will be given as a donation to Pershing Elementary School in honor of Laura Bush. Patrick is doing this independent of any political persuasions, though he did vote for John McCain.

“Regardless of your political views, President Bush was our leader for the last eight years,” says Patrick. “I think he deserves respect for being our Commander in Chief and we are delighted to have him in our neighborhood.”

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More Company Coming To Dallas Dirt: Meet Worth Ross

Does the maintenance and repair of your home and investment properties drive you to drink? How would you like to manage properties — multiple — like 300 plus? That’s how Worth Ross spends his life 24/7, managing multi-family from posh single family rentals to the most upscale high rises on Turtle Creek. From saving homeowners hundreds in monthly association dues to boiler breaks to frozen water pipes, Worth has seen, heard and repaired it all. (Not himself, but I hear he has the best repair Rolodex in town and I just may get sticky fingers.) I thought we needed the voice of facility management experience right about now — and Worth will be sharing his deepest property care secrets with the readers of Dallas Dirt. (Feel free to send in questions. Here’s my first: how to save money, any, on energy costs. Specifically, the cost of crude is down so why haven’t Glacial Energy and TXU lowered our utility prices?) Hey, what works for Turtle Creek works for a home on say, Daria Place. Excuse me while I go make sure all our exterior faucets are frost proof: it’s so cold I need a mink just to read the thermostat.

Bushes Close On Second Home

10151 Daria Place, for the Secret Service to live in or… who knows?

I Heart Gordon Keith & More Media En Route To Dallas To See Bush Home

I should have posted this yesterday but, ah, we had the D holiday party. Beauty of the web is I will soon be able to post a link for you right here. Gordon Keith was kind enough to have me on his show  to chat up chez Bush. He also had a hysterical visit with Santa, who I secretly slipped my Christmas list. (Santa said something about dreaming on, then passed the flask.) Speaking of house dreams, folks on Daria Place may be itching to clear the media from their cul de sac, but should be thankful they are not in the Albany Park section of Chicago. Might as well set up a few tea and crumpet stands because more media are on their way to Dallas: BBC World Service Radio is making a documentary about the Bush legacy and will be in Dallas in the next couple weeks.

Storm Windows? In Texas???

See, I think storm windows are under-appreciated.  Particularly when a house has historic windows, good storm windows can preserve the appearance of the house and cut down significantly on air infiltration and noise.  Normally less expensive than new windows.  And I also wonder if they’re not a deterrent to break-ins.  There were existing storm windows at 802 Salmon, and Chas & Jack decided to paint the frames to complement the trim colors and keep them everywhere but on the front facade.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

I agree with Tim: James Ragland’s column on Preston Hollow, where I live, is a waste of paper that Belo should not waste. We explained the deed restriction “non-issue” that Huffington was trying to “stir”. Item 11 in the deed restrictions that cover the President’s new property (properties) on Daria Place was NOT an issue in 2000. Nor were racist-toned covenants an issue when he bought the family’s home on Northwood in the 1990’s. That racist language has been illegal for many years, but because it was written into legal documents, the graphs could not vanish. The Texas legislature passed recent legislation that enabled homeowners to amend racist language in deed restrictions, which is why many home associations chose to alter them. Real estate reflects history, and truth be told our history is loaded with discrimination… and garbage. Until the 70’s, women could not obtain mortgages or buy homes on their own. They couldn’t even obtain credit cards in their names. We were considered our husband’s chattel. I would not be surprised to find deed restrictions somewhere saying it’s illegal for women to own property — unless they reside in the back-house kitchen.

If Ragland’s point was to give a thumb-nail sketch of Preston Hollow, then I suggest you find a copy of Eva Potter Morgan’s “Preston Hollow”. Preston Hollow was briefly incorporated as a town after an election on November 18, 1939, the voting taking place in the real estate office of Mr. Ira P. DeLoach, also the man who hired Ebby Halliday. Her name and company now occupy what was the town hall of Preston Hollow, the “little white house” at the corner of Northwest Highway and Preston Road. Initially the notion of incorporating PH into a town was controversial, the heart of the discussion being fiscal concerns and higher taxes with annexation. But it was one of humanity’s most basic dilemmas — sanitation — that united Preston Hollow with Dallas while the Park Cities would remain the Golden Bubble in-between:

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Meanwhile, Back in the Real World: 802 Salmon Update

HUGE progress has been made on the rehab–and lots of difficult decisions on green and energy efficiency features.

My favorite restoration: the dormer.  Check out the before and after! 

And what a smart thing to add to the daylighting in the house by adding a light well from one of the dormer windows down to the front entryway!

Extreme Makeover Picks Keller, Texas Family & House To Redo

Tim even found the location on Google….

Bush/Meaders Restrictive Covenants: For Whites, Only?

I wondered when this would come up — and now it has, thanks to The Huffington Post. (Channel 11’s Bud Gillette called me about this Friday.) HP is stirring trouble, not telling the whole story. The James Meaders Restrictive Covenants are (sadly) typical of the way developers created sub-divisions post World war II in Dallas when the city was growing. I have experience with these because we also have them in our neighborhood. In fact, almost every Dallas neighborhood does! When we closed on our home in 1999, I was shocked when I read them. Homeowners in our ’hood extended our deed restrictions in 2005 as a means of “protecting property values” — so they are, in fact, effective today. But the racist clauses are illegal and un-enforecable and have been so since the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Our ‘hood fixed our’s in 2001, and it appears that Mayflower beat us to the punch and amended, second to the last page, on July 16, 2000:

“Item 11 shall be deleted.”

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Bush Home: What They Could Have Bought

IF they had bought in the Park Cities, that is. Check it out at the Armstrong Bradfield Preschool Association’s tenth annual  ”Homes for the Holidays” Home tour starting today at 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. The tour includes a Tudor mansion on Mockingbird Lane, a modern home on Miramar Avenue, a California-eclectic home on Maplewood Avenue and a French-inspired home on Edmondson Avenue. 

“We have four amazing homes — unique in their own ways,” said Rebecca Black, ABPA Home Tour co-chair.  “If you have ever wanted to peek inside some of the remarkable residences in the Park Cities, join us on tour day and kick-off your holiday season in style!”

 Tickets are $15 in advance and $20 at the door, and of course what is a home tour without a raffle? Maybe the folks from Daria Place can abandon their homes for a few hours, come to the ABPA Home Tour, and get a few hours respite from paparazzi. 

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DallasDirt Exclusive: The Bushes’ Dallas Home(s)???

The President and Laura Bush will soon be coming home to Dallas. It won’t be long before we spot them in Tom Thumb at Preston Royal. For months we have obsessed over where they would end up living. Current cocktail chatter points to what I’ve said all along — Preston Hollow — and a nook of a street called Daria Place.

Here’s why: on October 1, Robert A. McCleskey bought a home at 10141 Daria Place. McCleskey is the Bushes’ Midland accountant and good friend of the First Couple. He’s also the man who placed the Bushes’ assets in a blind trust when W. became governor of Texas in 1995. McCleskey bought the home from Dan and Laura Boeckman. As far as I know, it hadn’t been on the market. (Of note: Dan Boeckman is one of the investors in Museum Tower.)

Daria Place is a sweet, leafy cul de sac off Daria Drive, which is off Meaders, in Preston Hollow, and across from Pershing Elementary School. (Read: uber safe.) Though the home was built in 1959, the interior has been completely refurbished and beautifully decked out — totally top notch, according to my sources, and contemporary. The one-story home has 8,501 square feet on 1.13 acres and no pool. The Bushes already have a pool at the Crawford ranch, which the President once called a “whine” pool. The kids whine so much, you just give in. This home has been placed in a trust.

Last week, the house next door, 10151 Daria Place, went under contract. The home, a sprawling 4,684-square-foot ranch on 1.26 acres, is unoccupied and in the estate of Joan Northway. It is listed for $1.6 million by LeeLee Gioia and Anne Goyler with Briggs-Freeman. The buyer on the contract: an Allie Beth Allman “property company and/or assigns.” The home is set to close December 10. Also no pool, just a creek running along the northern property line.

“We have no idea who the buyer is,” said Gioia, one of Briggs-Freeman’s most dynamic agents. “We operated like Madame X was buying the property.”

I called Pierce Allman over at ABA, since Allie Beth is the Bushes’ agent. He told me that all kinds of stories are circulating out there. He did not confirm my theory.

So here’s what I’m thinking: the Bushes will live at 10141 Daria and plop the Secret Service in 10151. They might also plop the President’s office in that home. Or they might tear it down for more land. Or they might live in 10141 while they build on 10151. All sorts of options.

This is the perfect setting for the Bushes for many reasons. A cul de sac, so the neighbors could agree to gate it off. Easy Tollway access down at Walnut Hill Lane (an entrance ramp south at Meaders would be mighty handy) or up at Royal. Cooper Aerobics is just a couple of miles north. Gosh, he could almost jog up there. And Laura could even volunteer at Pershing Elementary or St. Mark’s. But the best thing: both properties back up to two enormous Dallas estates — the 14.26-acre estate of Gene and Roxanne Phillips (just had a trout-filled lake installed on the property) and the 24-plus-acre estate of Thomas O. and Cinda Hicks, who hosted a fundraiser in their home for former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani last year. Seclusion, safety, and true blue — make that red — friends all around them.

Welcome home!

Update: the DMN has now run with the story and obliquely given DallasDirt credit for the scoop.

I Heart Home Tours: Dallas Woman’s Forum Holiday Home Tour of The Alexander Mansion

In 1904, Charles H. Alexander — banker, manufacturer and entrepreneur — built his residence at 4607 Ross Avenue for $125,000. At the time, Ross Avenue was Dallas’ equivalent of Fifth Avenue in NYC. We could compare it to Beverly Drive, except there were no deed restrictions (hello, Houston) so the neighborhood began to crumble — and well, you know where the Silk Stocking district trotted her silky legs.  But this year, a century later, the Alexander Mansion is once again bedazzling on the inside with a little help from some friends. The Dallas Women’s Forum, which has owned the mansion since 1930, presents a spectacular Holiday Home Tour at The Alexander Mansion December 4 to 21, Thursday through Sunday on the hour from11:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. Tickets are $10 ($8 seniors, $5 children). Proceeds from the tours will help the Dallas Women’s Forum support the needs of children in the neighbohood and fund continued ro=enovation of the Alexander Mansion.

Two dynamo Realtors are working ferventing on this projet, Sheila Rice and Virginia Cook, Virginia Cook Realtors. For more information, check out www.dallaswomensforum.organd stay tuned to this blog for upcoming photos. There’s ony one thing I like better than gorgeous homes: homes with a serious past!!!

Julius Jones’ Uptown Town Home On The Market, But I’d Rather Cook My Turkey At The Neighbor’s

Listed for $1.3 million with Allie Beth Allman’s Forrest Gregg. Really nice crib. Jones tells the DMN he moved “down there” (Uptown) last year and vascillates between selling or not selling his bachelor pad. Which we can understand, but DCAD sees things a little differently. Maybe that’s because they just don’t know that the $1,425,000 listing next door is loaded with — get this — bamboo flooring, a floating staircase and an Aga stove!

Opening of Atlantis, The Palm: Dallas Present In Full Force Weekend Past

All because Dallas interior designer Trisha Wilson’s company, Wilson Associates, did the design for the $1.5 billion dollar hotel. You bet she was there! Trisha says there were more than 2000 VIP guests, herself included, at one of the most expensive and lavish hotel openings in history. Despite recent financial news, owner/developer Sol Kerzner spared no expense. Kylie Monogue was the featured performer and she sat at the table right next to Trisha — “one of the nicest celebrities I’ve ever met,” said Trisha, adding that Kylie is tiny and had on fabulous 5 inch heels. Samantha Ronsen was the DJ for the afterparty. She was there with Lindsey Lohan, Quincy Jones and Robert De Niro. Trisha was seated with Yue- Sai Khan (her good friend, the “Oprah of Asia”, read all about their interesting friendship in the article I wrote on Trisha for DCEO Magazine). Other Hollywood celebs present include Charlize Theron, Mary-Kate Olsen and Michale Jordan plus enough royalty to bail out the bail out.